The relationship of multicultural awareness and belief of rape myths with intellectual empathy and empathic emotion for victims of acquaintance and stranger rape among undergraduate women and men

The purpose of this dissertation was to evaluate the contribution of observer sex, type of rape, multicultural awareness and belief in rape myths to intellectual empathy and empathic emotions of male and female college students toward acquaintance or stranger rape victims. This study also sought to explore if there were interactions between and among these variables which would predict additional variance in intellectual empathy and empathic emotion. The results of the study showed that observers' who read the stranger rape scenario held significantly more intellectual empathy for rape victims than observers who read the acquaintance rape scenario. Participants who endorsed lower levels of belief in rape myths also held more intellectual empathy for rape victims than participants who endorsed higher levels of belief in rape myths. The study did not find support for the hypothesis that type of rape scenario, sex, belief in rape myths, and multicultural awareness contributed to empathic emotion for rape victims. Interactions of the study variables did not predict additional variance in intellectual empathy nor emphatic emotion for victims of rape.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Counseling Psychology (UMKC)

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Missouri--Kansas City

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Hiatt, Tawny A.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Duan, Changming

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10355/11741

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:mospace.umsystem.edu:10355/11741